


One Step Forward

by aeslis



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:08:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25029784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeslis/pseuds/aeslis
Summary: Nino works hard, but sometimes that’s not enough. Sho’s ready to help him.
Relationships: Ninomiya Kazunari/Sakurai Sho
Kudos: 11
Collections: Ninomiya Exchange





	One Step Forward

Every six months, they get together. Like always, Nino is late.

The streets are still full of people as he gets off the subway, finds his way up the stairs through Shinjuku's buzzing heart to the address on the glowing screen of his phone. When he gets to the restaurant, it's rowdy, full of smoke and laughter from the crowded tables of salarymen. The hostess leads him unerringly through the murky ambiance to the back, and he slips through the hanging curtain, bumping his hip to Ohno's as he sits down and pretends he was there all along.

As soon as he appears, a cheer goes up: Sho and Aiba, who are already paired red with happy drunkenness. Jun doesn't cheer, but he does have a beer in Nino's hand almost immediately, poured from the frothy, half-full pitcher in the middle of the table. Trust Jun to give him exactly what he needs.

"Hurry, hurry," Sho urges, and then they've all got their glasses up for a toast, congratulations for Nino finally finishing work. The beer is crisp and loud on Nino's tongue. It's perfect. A tiny thread inside him uncurls.

"You're finally here!" adds Aiba, too loud, so bright. Nino estimates he has at least two beers in him already, maybe three. He looks good, tan and healthy, like he was outside surfing the whole summer. He whacks Sho on the arm. "Sho-chan, Sho-chan give him some food."

"I'm doing it, jeeze!" Sho feeds several pieces of sizzling meat onto Nino's white porcelain plate with his tongs.

"Thanks, Mom," Nino grins. He purposely jostles his elbow into Ohno's arm as he cracks his chopsticks in two. "Who decided on yakiniku again, huh?"

Nino won't be able to pay. There are at least a dozen plates on the table full of things still waiting to be grilled: shrimp and tongue and delicious, decadent skirt steak. There will be more. His friends eat like ravenous beasts, and they've already been here for at least an hour and a half. He thinks of his refrigerator at home with his two cans of beers and yesterday's half eaten bento from the convenience store.

"Don't tell me you didn't bring your wallet again," Jun says, his dark brows furrowed over broodingly sharp eyes. He already knows Nino's answer.

So Nino gives it to him. "I forgot," he says, unrepentant. They’ve danced this dance before.

Jun scoffs, rolling his eyes.

"Do you even own one?" Aiba asks cheerfully. "I've never seen it. What's it look like?"

"Didn't Satoshi give him a wallet last year?" Sho asks idly as he flips things on the grill.

Ohno had. It has Yoshi on it. Nino uses it, too, but he usually doesn't have anything to put in it except his train pass and a few stamp cards from bakeries and the game store.

They talk some; Nino listens, trying to fill in the pieces he missed while he was still at work. Aiba has a new girlfriend, but that’s nothing new. Every six months it’s someone different, and Nino sees pictures in Aiba’s LINE timeline anyway, always a new beach and a new bikini, but at least he can ask how the sex is. (“Wild,” says Aiba with the most boyishly lecherous grin Nino has ever seen.)

At some point, Ohno finally got his boating certification. Nino whacks him thoroughly on the back, making Ohno drop his shrimp, and says, “Never take me.”

Ohno frowns over his plate.

“Seriously,” Nino says. “Fish make my skin crawl.”

Jun-kun is, miraculously, still with Mao. At this point Nino’s betting they’re getting married, although Jun doesn’t talk about it. His LINE adventures are full of colorful strobe lighting and backstage cameo shots thanks to his job as a concert producer, and when he uploads anything else it’s usually photos of strange places in foreign lands. Food from restaurants Nino’s never heard of, the view from hotel windows across brightly lit cities. Half the reason they can only meet so infrequently is Jun’s globetrotting.

Sho’s the real mystery. A corporate executive who, even right now, is in his unbuttoned dress shirt, his paisley tie long-since loosened. He says stupid things in their group chat and uses nearly as many stickers as Aiba, but Nino doesn’t actually know what’s going on in his life, and even right now, cheeks pinked generously by alcohol, he just laughs at everyone else’s antics. Is he dating someone? Seeing a girl? Nino wonders.

“Nino!” Sho says in a lull, lifting his beer and using it to point in Nino’s direction, startling from his reverie. “I just read the newest chapter of Keeper Pass this morning.”

“Oh?” Nino says carefully, a sour curl threatening in his chest. “What did you think?”

“It’s gotten really interesting!” Sho’s eyes are so big, so earnest. “Everybody, you’re reading it, right? It has, right?”

“Yes!” Aiba’s hands bang down on the table, rattling the glasses, and Sho squawks. “The girl with the flowers, the secret messages, that was a stroke of genius. Did you come up with that, Nino-chan?”

Nino sits back in his seat. “Yeah, it was me.”

He feels Ohno’s hand on his knee under the table.

“Did he get better? The Dictator?” Jun asks, watching Nino carefully.

The hope in Sho’s and Aiba’s faces is hard to look at.

“I wasn’t late because I wanted to be,” Nino says finally. No, he’d been late because his dickmunch of a boss descended at ten minutes before Nino’s promised end of day with five pages of backgrounds for him to re-ink. Pages that had nothing wrong with them at all. Nino is lucky he isn’t sloppy with alcohol yet, because if he were, the things he would say.

Sho, Aiba, and Jun all share a glance. Nino shrugs. “Look, it’s fine. I’ll just...I don’t know, I’ll ask for more responsibility, maybe. It’ll be fine.” But the words hang heavy, like lies.

Sho’s happy buzz has mutated to indignance. “You mean he’s stealing your ideas and still giving you shit?”

“Nino-chan, that’s not okay,” Aiba breathes.

The happy atmosphere around the table plummets into thick silence, only filled by the snorting laughter at the next table. Nino flicks his glass, takes a drink, and pretends not to notice. Jun stares at his plate, frowning, and Aiba’s owlish eyes blink at Nino across the table.

Nino’s just about to open his mouth, to say something flippant, when: “You should quit,” Sho says, stone-faced and belligerent, his voice a low rumble of thunder. “You’re good. You know you’re good, right? Someone will appreciate your skill better than that quack.”

Nino laughs, but it’s double-edged. Sho’s anger feels good, like that first sip of beer, and he knows it’s because Sho’s drunk, because Nino really isn’t that good. “I can’t. I have to eat, Sho-chan.”

“Sho-kun’s right, though,” Ohno speaks up from where he nurses his drink. “You could do it, Nino. Write your own, draw your own.”

Jun bites an edamame out of its shell, then tosses it in the growing pile of empty green husks. “I think so too.”

Aiba nods loyally, his eyes glassy like he wants to cry.

“Thanks,” Nino says, and he means it. It’s why he comes to see them, even after a twelve-hour day at work when all he wants is his bed and his game console and no more thoughts to think. They’re precious, even when they suggest impossible things.

“I’ll think about it.”

\--

After three more beers, the room swims pleasantly. Nino’s stomach has lost its sour feeling and his limbs are loose. He tucks his fingers into the collar of Ohno’s shirt, makes fun of Aiba’s stupid drinking game and constant dropping of chopsticks, and makes up silly names for Jun’s and Mao’s future children which Jun curtly denounces while trying not to smile.

At some point Ohno goes to the bathroom and Nino finds his head pillowed on Sho’s leg. Under the table, Aiba’s and Jun’s knees knock together. He can hear the conversation, kind of, but nothing about it seems particularly important, and when Ohno comes back he sits on Nino’s feet, so Nino flails his legs over Ohno’s lap. It’s comfortable, and good, and he’s glad he came.

He must fall asleep, because soon Sho is nudging him up with steady hands. Surprisingly steady considering how drunk he’d been, but then Sho has always had something deep and reliable about him, something that Nino has always felt like he could lean on.

Sho lets him lean as they tumble to the register, where Nino loudly reminds everyone he didn’t bring his wallet, and then they tumble the rest of the way out into the quieter Shinjuku streets.

Nino listens as everyone talks about last trains, and Sho holds his hand to keep him from wobbling off. “I’ll walk you,” Sho tells him. There’s an unseasonable chill to the air, and Nino shivers in his ink-stained hoodie.

Then he gets too many hugs. One from Jun, who smells like the perfect amount of cologne, and five from Aiba, who smells like beer. “We really should meet up more often!” Aiba says. He always says it, like clockwork, every six months.

“Should we do next month?” Sho suggests.

They all say yes, because they always do, but they know it won’t work out that way, because their lives are too busy, too full of responsibilities. Still, Nino likes that they pretend.

“Bye Nino! Bye Sho-chan!” Aiba waves as he bounces and jumps backward, straight into Jun and Ohno, as they leave to catch the Yamanote line for home.

Jun catches him, but not without muttering something under his breath. He hooks his arm around Aiba’s shoulders to drag him away, and the last thing Nino hears is Ohno’s laughter.

“Say hi to Mao-chan!” Nino waves after them.

“Ready?” Sho says, and Nino realizes their fingers have threaded together.

They’re quiet as they head for Nino’s subway entrance around the corner. Nino could make it by himself, he’s sure. He’s gotten home more drunk than this plenty of times, and it’s not like Sho’s going to get on the train with him to make sure he doesn’t fall asleep and miss his stop. But he doesn’t say anything, and Sho walks with him down the dirty stairs in his shiny work shoes, into the bowels of the subway system, where the air is thick and warm.

There are still at least two more of Nino’s trains left for the night, but people run by them in a hurry to not be on the last one, the local train that stops at every stop and is packed full of hot human bodies. When they reach the subway gate, Nino pulls out his wallet.

Sho laughs, and laughs, and it feels like everyone turns around to look, because Sho’s laugh is one of the happiest sounds he knows. “I knew it. You’re such an ass.”

He tugs Nino in with an arm around Nino’s neck, and Nino is drawn into the scent of fresh pressed clothes and Sho’s shampoo. Sho’s chest is hard under his shirt, and Nino holds on longer than he means to. “You’ll be okay, Nino. Let me know if you need anything.”

“Sure,” Nino says, and makes himself pull away.

Sho waits, waving, until the train disappears.

\--

Nino manages to drink enough water that his head doesn’t feel like someone went at it with an ice pick the next day, but he’s still not happy when he gets to work.

His desk already has piles of paper on it, even though he’s early. There are post-its everywhere, the handwriting on it a hurried scrawl of angry ink, telling him to add this, strike that, and emphasize the other. He scowls at them as he sits down and sets up his pen.

Two hours spent hunched over his work later, he feels Sensei over his shoulder.

“Ninomiya-san,” he says shortly. “Your strokes still have no emotion in them.” He jabs at the corner of the paper Nino is working on. “Here, fix this. Make it taller. It will change the whole mood of the scene.”

It’s a fence. Just a fence. It changes nothing.

“Okay,” says Nino, just wanting him to go away.

“And this,” Sensei says, leaning over Nino, his hand crossing over to the foot of the page where one of the secondary character’s shoes is. “Make it come alive. Make it real.”

Nino’s hand tightens on his pen. Sensei doesn’t touch him, but Nino still feels the weight of all his disdain pushing into his shoulders. He breathes carefully. “Yeah, I will.”

“If you ever want to make it in this industry, you have to be able to take direction,” Sensei informs him. Then he goes to his own desk across the room, leaving Nino to redo his work yet again.

Around one o’clock, which Nino only notices because it’s past lunch and he hasn’t eaten yet, his cell phone lights up and starts playing the chocobo theme. Nino never gets calls during work. It’s strange enough that Sensei looks up from his desk with a frown. The caller ID says SAKURAI.

“Excuse me,” Nino says, clenching the phone and dashing from his chair. “I have to take this.”

Sensei’s eyes follow him with withering disapproval, but Nino doesn’t care. He shuts the door behind him, finding out on the front step, where he can really breathe. “Hello? Sho-chan?”

“Nino! How are you? Sorry if I’m interrupting work.”

Nino leans against the wall, letting his head fall back with a thump. “No, it’s fine.”

“Really?” He sounds unsure. “I can call back later, if that’s better.”

A woman bicycles past, her groceries loading down her cart. The sun is out, but doesn’t reach him; he’s in the building’s shadow, hiding from it. “It’s okay. What’s up?”

“I was thinking,” Sho starts. He’s hesitant, like he’s about to say something he knows Nino won’t like. Nino imagines him on the top floor of some impressive glass building that sees every angle of Tokyo, out to the horizon. He’s never been to Sho’s work. “My family, they have a summer house. We haven’t been there in a long time. I thought maybe...if you need somewhere to go. If you wanted to quit. Look!” He hurries on before Nino can open his mouth. “It’d help us out a lot. We don’t have anyone to live there, and honestly I could use a break from work, if you want some company, and you can use it as a retreat to get started on a manga that you want to make. I know you don’t...you’re dedicated and that’s great but I really think you could do it, Nino, you’re brilliant.”

Nino’s throat hurts.

“You’re brilliant, and I want you to be able to really do what you can do. I want to help. So...” He trials off, like he’s not sure what to say next. “If you want to think about it...”

“I don’t like charity, Sho-chan.”

There’s a pause, and then Sho says, “Who am I talking to?”

Nino grins. A breath of wind tugs at his clothes, his hair, trying to chase him back inside. He clings to the warm pulse of his phone and Sho’s voice on the other end. “Food’s fine. A house is different. I can’t pay you back.”

“You might be able to if you’re successful,” Sho points out. “Look, don’t say no. Just think about it.”

“Okay,” Nino says, just like he said the night before. “I’ll think about it.”

\--

Nino doesn’t intend to think about it at all. He puts his head down and works, fixes all the stupid things Sensei asks him to fix, and then some, trying to get ahead of all the complaints. He makes things bigger, louder, bolder. And when Sensei muses about plot points and characters out loud, Nino tries to keep silent until Sensei says, “What do you think, Ninomiya-kun?”

The next chapter of Keeper Pass features all of Nino’s ideas. At this point, Nino feels like a ghostwriter, since almost nothing’s left of Sensei in the story. Their editor calls and praises Sensei, tells him he’s written one of his best chapters yet. A room away, head bent over his desk and a crick in his neck, Nino listens to Sensei accept all the praise ever so graciously.

Nino keeps thinking Sensei will stop finding things to criticize. That he’ll praise Nino instead, give him some kind of credit. Maybe even thank him.

He doesn’t.

\--

Nino finishes the last beer in his fridge. He lies on his futon, his body sluggish, and stares at the ceiling. When he thinks about it, counting back in slow motion, he realizes it’s been almost three years. Three years without a raise, without a single forward step. He’s always been standing at square one.

He holds his hands over his head. His fingers are bitten with ink, always. It’s sunk into his cuticles, permanently branded his nails. There’s a callous where he holds his pen.

There isn’t an out to the tunnel, not if he keeps going forward. He’s always known that, honestly.

He needs to make a detour. Even if he doesn’t know what’s at the other end, it has to be better than never finding an exit.

He calls Sho.

\--

After three hours spent watching the violently orange trees whizz past the window, it’s almost nightfall when Sho picks him up at the train station in his expensive, sporty car. For the first time in years, Nino sees him out of a suit. He’s got on two hoodies that are exactly the same.

“This is your brand of fashion?” Nino says, staring.

“You don’t like it?” Sho looks hurt.

“You’re a disaster,” Nino tells him, fighting a rush of dangerous, inadvisable fondness.

Sho’s a careful driver. Out here in the country, the roads are poorly lit, and he eases down them in slow turns, his hands at a perfect ten and two on the steering wheel. “We used to summer here ever year,” he says in a musing, conversational tone as they drive by a small burst of shops. “It feels weird to be back. Good weird, but still weird.”

“How long is your vacation?” Nino wants to know. “You’re helping me get it all ready, then you’re going?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

Nino looks at him sideways. Looks at Sho’s thoughtful profile as he watches the road. “As long as you leave me a bicycle,” he finally says.

\--

They drive through an open gate in a low stone wall, and suddenly, they’re home. Sho’s left lights on in two of the windows, but the rest of it is just an outline in the night: a two-story, old-fashioned home like Nino’s grandparents had. He knows before he even steps inside that half of the flooring is tatami and the stairs are narrow and hollow. There are no webbed screens on the sliding windows, and bugs will fly right in.

It’s way, way better than his apartment.

Sho offers to help with Nino’s bags, and Nino gives him the extra heavy one just because he can. The door clatters as it opens into the entryway, which is mostly empty except for a few other pairs of Sho’s shoes, all of them sporty and expensive-looking. Nino leaves his ratty sneakers next to them. A low wooden table sits square in the middle of the living room tatami, papers distributed over the top of it. Nino guesses they’re something Sho was doing for work. There’s a old television in the corner and a space heater, which Sho clicks on, and the coils start humming immediately. “It’s not much, really,” Sho apologizes.

Nino takes a deep breath and smells incense covering the smell of old house. “It’s perfect.”

Up the stairs (which are just as rickety as Nino imagined) are the bedrooms, Sho’s right across the hall. Nino’s futon is laid out, the bedding pale blue with flowers. “Sorry,” Sho says, sheepish. “All the stuff here, my mom picked out. It’s old. We can go get you new things if you want, in the morning.”

The space is cozy and full of things. Books on shelves, a decorative fan on the wall, memories from Sho’s childhood, before Nino met him. He opens the linen closet, which is packed with old toys and stuffed animals, and then clothes and sweaters that haven’t been worn in years.

“Should I leave you to settle in?” When he turns around, Sho is leaning against the door frame, studying him, wearing his stupid double sweatshirts and looking unfairly beautiful in both them. For a second that feels like ten, Nino doesn’t know what to say.

Sho must feel it too, because he clears his throat and takes a step back into the hall. “Goodnight, Nino. I’ll see you in the morning.” And, with a little smile, he closes the door.

\--

They don’t go shopping in the morning. They do some serious cleaning, instead. Sho’s terrible at it, and the kitchen has cobwebs and dirty counters. Nino scrubs frantically, trying to make the sink a safe zone, and shouts encouragement (and insults) to Sho’s attack on the refrigerator.

By noon, both of them are flat on the floor, groaning. “I hate cleaning,” Sho says into the tatami.

“It hates you too,” Nino says, in case Sho wasn’t sure.

The bathroom...well, Nino doesn’t care as much about the bathroom, and apparently neither does Sho. Things flush, that’s what counts. But there are two toothbrushes in the rack, and two towels on hooks, and Nino wonders again just how long Sho will stay.

\--

By the end of the week, Nino still hasn’t started drawing. His pen and ink and paper stay rolled up in his bag against the wall.

None of his ideas are right.

Except one, and he can’t draw it.

\--

Sho doesn’t ask. It’s like he knows Nino needs time to uncurl from under the shadow of that house, and leak into the spaces of this one. He tries to cook things for them for dinner and ends up setting off the ancient smoke alarm, which Nino rips the batteries out of.

That night they bike up the road to get pork cutlet at a local eatery, one Sho used to frequent with his parents and sister. The chef welcomes Sho heartily and gives them side dishes on the house, way too much for two people to eat. Sho ends up stuffing himself with it, because Nino only eats enough for half a person even when he’s not trying to scrimp and save. Nino laughs more than he has in months. It’s probably the beer, but his stomach feels like it’s full of bubbles, and Sho keeps grinning at him, clinking glasses with him, making him drink.

By the time they wheel out the door, Nino is lighter than air. They get back on their bikes and careen down the street. Nino doesn’t quite know where the pedals are or how fast he’s supposed to ride, but Sho is ahead of him, warbling terrible love songs that were popular in high school, and Nino joins in, laughing the whole way.

\--

The bikes crash to the ground. Neither of them has the wherewithal to pick them back up and put them carefully away. They stumble inside after Sho finds his key and scrapes it into the lock, batting the door aside. Nino pushes Sho from behind, feels Sho’s spine bend as they crash to the floor and roll, giggling idiots who don’t know up from down.

Nino is hot, from his toes to his fingertips, and he doesn’t think before he rolls into Sho’s space and kisses the patch of skin next to Sho’s eye.

Sho’s giggling subsides. He looks at Nino wonderingly, his face patched and ruddy, his lips right there, parted, breathing. Nino’s heart suddenly feels too big and too small at once.

“Hey,” Sho starts.

Nino decides, right then, he doesn’t want Sho to talk. Before Sho can finish that thought, Nino is on him, his fingers digging into the lapels of Sho’s windbreaker, their mouths bumping together hard enough that he can feel Sho’s teeth.

There’s a spiraling, crazy second where things could go any which way, but then Sho grabs Niko by the waist and rolls him on top. Nino can feel Sho’s bones, his muscles, as he stretches, lengthens, until they’re pressed together on the hard, cold floor, and Sho’s mouth opens, hot and plush and too much for Nino, but also not enough.

It becomes a mini war, with Nino clawing at Sho’s shoulders and Sho rocking under him. Their kisses are sloppy and raw and Nino’s ears ring.

Sho’s hands crowd under Nino’s shirt, his palm feverish over Nino’s skin, dragging over Nino’s belt, and Nino gets hard so fast it’s painful. Sho’s not even touching him.

“We’re drun’.” Sho’s voice finds its way into Nino’s mouth.

Nino knows this. There’s alcohol in his veins instead of blood.

“Nino. Nino, stop—” Sho isn’t stopping, Nino doesn’t see why he has to. But Sho tips his head back, and suddenly they’re panting. A car goes by outside. They forgot to close the door.

“Sho.” But Nino doesn’t know what words he’s supposed to say. He just wants Sho to look at him, to give him back those perfectly pouty lips, to roll his hips up into Nino again. Nino drags his hands down Sho’s cheeks, tries to get him back.

“No,” Sho says, and pushes Nino off him, puts space between them like he’s stroking the space with white out. “I—we—tomorrow.” He pulls himself up the wall. “Tomorrow. In the, the morning, we’ll...Nino.”

Nino burns. He can’t tell if it’s embarrassment or arousal, but right now he hates both, wants neither. He gets to his feet without Sho’s help, ignores Sho’s puppy face, and climbs every single stair, thumping his way into his futon and blissful, terrible sleep.

\--

The next morning is cruel. After wavering in and out of sleep, Nino’s head feels like he left it on a train track overnight. His mouth is murky, and he has to pee with a scary intensity. He gets to the bathroom just in time.

There are still two toothbrushes at the sink, but the house is quiet. Nino has no idea what time it is, but the sun casts hard light through the windows. He stares at himself in the mirror, procrastinates going downstairs. His eyes are bloodshot. He rubs them.

Finally, he gives in. He can’t avoid Sho forever in a house this small. He lets his feet be heavy on the steps so Sho can hear him, can know he’s coming. When he gets to the ground floor, he finds Sho at the table with a pot of tea, bags under his eyes, and the newspaper.

Sho looks up, and Nino feels the gulf yawn wide inside him.

“Good morning,” Sho says, and there’s a note of delicate carefulness in his voice.

“Morning.” Nino slumps down to the table, and Sho pours him tea.

After several slurps of tea, Sho breaks the silence again. “I have to go back to work for a bit,” he says, looking sheepish from under his brows.

Sure, Nino thinks. That’s not surprising at all. “Okay.”

“When I come back,” Sho says, and stops. Nino doesn’t look at him. “When I come back, will you show me your art?”

“Sure,” Nino says. He hasn’t drawn a thing since he’s gotten here. But he knows what Sho is really saying. Last night was a mistake, and there’s a reason Nino is here. That wasn’t it. It’s time for him to start getting his shit together.

Sho nods decisively, like it’s decided. “I’ll text you,” he says.

He’s gone by noon.

\--

Nino doesn’t know when Sho is coming back, if he even is. But in his absence, the house feels empty.

A week passes, and then another.

The first snow falls.

\--

Nino has to close all the shoji doors to turn the living room into a box before the space heater does much good. It’s a small thing that radiates an unearthly orange glow, and when Nino points it at himself, it’s way too hot, but when he turns it away, he freezes. He wishes the table were a kotatsu instead of a regular table, but this was just a summer home, after all.

Nino tries to find some extra clothes in the upstairs closets, but the closet in his room only has tank tops and swim trunks. He does find a kendama, though, and he spends at least half an hour with it, until he gets the ball on the peg five times in a row, before he ventures into Sho’s room.

Sho’s left stuff. His futon is neatly folded in the corner of the room, but there’s a dresser, and in it Nino finds one of Sho’s double parkas. He steals it, weasels into it, and pulls the hood over his head before he goes back downstairs.

For the first time, he opens his art supplies. He clears space on the table, sets out his sketchbook. For a while he stares at the blank white page.

He remembers, long ago, when he first met Sho, back in college. Sho was the last one they all met. After two years of dating Satomi, Nino had thought he met all her friends, and all their boyfriends, but then there was Maki, and Maki brought Sho.

Nino remembers that Sho fit right in. He was rougher around the edges then, with wild, finger-to-the-electric-socket hair. He’d been so skinny his jaw could cut, but he had laughed, and Nino had known right away that he wanted to make Sho laugh more.

Maki didn’t stay for long, but they kept Sho.

And when Nino broke up with Satomi the year after that, they kept him, too.

Nino draws. He draws from his memories. He draws Sho over the pool table, and Aiba at the beach, Ohno reeling in the biggest fish he’s ever fished. He draws Jun and his hundreds of bracelets, Jun with sunglasses, Jun with his camera. He draws Maki and Satomi and Mao over a picnic basket, and Shihori chasing Aiba’s frisbee across the park. He draws Mao’s cat clawing Jun’s face off, he draws surfboards and volleyballs and so many, many beers.

He draws two hands about to touch. He draws the end of a long night, a train about to pull away. He draws a strong shoulder, fine hands. He draws bicycles fallen in the dirt. He draws a monster that lives inside a heart.

\--

It’s not radio silence from Sho. Nino does get a text, eventually. There had been an important client and some kind of disaster, and Sho was the only one the client would talk to. He’s effusively apologetic.

Nino is about to set his phone aside and go back to his kendama when the last message comes in:

_When I get back, let’s talk?_

Nino stares at it a while. Sho could want to talk about anything. About that night in the hallway, maybe—but more likely about Nino’s progress with his story.

If he can show it to Sho at all.

\--

By the time Sho comes back, there’s snow everywhere. Nino’s given up on riding his bicycle to get food and has taken to trudging the distance to the grocery store up the road. He has a good stock of cup o ramen, but he’s getting sick of it.

He has pages and pages of story. Once he’d started, he hadn’t been able to stop.

Nino hears the car outside, hears the engine cut out. The car door open and slam, and the crunch of Sho’s boots over the snow up the walk which Nino has neglected to shovel. Hears the front door open and thud back closed, the jangle of keys going into the key cup, and then finally, the living room door slides open.

“Hurry up,” Nino grouses. “You’re gonna let the cold air in.”

He wants to see Sho and he doesn’t want to see Sho. Sho looks good—too good, honestly. He’s gotten a haircut and it falls in his eyes, and the brisk winter air giving way to the heat of the living room has turned his cheeks rosy. He closes the door with a hasty bang, and they both jump.

“Sorry!”

This time, it’s Nino that pours tea for Sho, into one of the last clean mugs. Sho takes it, wraps his hands around it.

“You’re drawing,” Sho says. He looks excited. “Did you make progress?”

“Yeah.” Nino feels the thud of his pulse. This was why he didn’t want to see Sho. “Want to read it?”

He puts his sketchbook into Sho’s hands, and once he does it, he has to let go. He has to wait, watching Sho’s fingers skim to the corners, tipping the pages before he turns them. He has to watch Sho’s eyes scan the script, stroke down the lines Nino had drawn. Just rough lines, faint promises of what an image could be, but enough, more than enough, for Sho to know.

“This is me,” he says.

Nino nods.

Sho closes the sketchbook. “And you.”

Nino doesn’t nod, this time, but they both know it anyway.

Sho’s hand slides across the table and finds Nino’s. Nino stretches out his fingers, and Sho’s find their places in between.

“It’s good,” he says, solemn and honest.

“I hoped you’d say that,” Nino answers.

\--

Nino’s draft grows. It becomes a mad thing, a passion. He draws the first chapters in the glow of the space heater, Sho nearby sipping tea, reading the paper.

They take breaks for snowball fights and snowmen, and then their numb fingers chase them back inside, and after a hot shower that Nino drags Sho into, he writes more.

He hopes Aiba, Ohno, and Jun don’t mind, because he writes them in, too, and in the end what he has is an epic travel through a video game kingdom, swords and magic and valiant idiots saving the world.

He submits it to one publisher after another, until it hits. And it sticks. And it stays.

\--

Every six months, like clockwork, they get together.

This time, Nino’s not late.


End file.
